Research Proposal on Enhanced Oil Recovery

Enhanced oil recovery is one of the methods of oil recovery fulfilled with the artificial alteration of physical and chemical characteristics of oil and increase of the productiveness of oil wells.

This way of recovery intensifies the oil flow and improves the oil recovery factor of the oil field up to 30-60%, in comparison with the primary and secondary types of recovery, the factor of which is equal to 20-40%. The primary type uses only the natural energy of the layer and it enables to extract no more than 20-30% of oil from the reservoir. The secondary types are characterized with the fact that experts improve the layer’s energy injecting it with gas or water. The factor increases up to 30-50%. In order to extract more than 50% on oil form the reservoir additional methods have been invented.

The idea is simple one must fill the reservoir with something which would raise the oil’s level making its recovery easier and faster. The most popular way is gas injection. CO2 is injected into the reservoir in the high amounts raising the oil’s level under the gas pressure. The method of polymer flooding is characterized with the mixing of molecules of polymers with the water injected into the reservoir with the purpose of making the water’s viscosity higher. There are also thermal methods, like steam flooding characterized with the introduction of steam and hot water into the reservoir which changes the physical qualities of oil. It is obvious that enhanced oil recovery makes oil producing corporations richer, because the amount of the extracted resource is increased. On the other hand, the impact on the environment is rather harmful, because many types of toxic elements are extracted within the oil which pollutes drinking water and soil.

Enhanced oil recovery is the method of the intensive oil extracting which is supposed to increase the amounts of the produced oil. The student is supposed to pay attention to the peculiarities of the method, observe the different approaches towards the issue as there are many types of the recovery applied according to the definite situation. The research proposal should be relevant and interesting, so the student is able to share his ideas about the extraction of oil with the modified methods of enhanced oil recovery making the paper exciting for the professor.

The main idea of a research proposal is to persuade the professor in the success of the chosen topic for the analysis, so one should see how experienced writers cope with this task in their free example research proposal on enhanced oil recovery prepared online. Every free sample research proposal on enhanced oil recovery is supposed to teach students to organize the writing process well and format the assignment correctly.